Undeclared peanuts in FDA food recalls

1,076 FDA food recall records since 2012 name undeclared peanuts, out of 7,778 undeclared allergen recalls in total. 384 are Class I. Data last updated 2 September 2026.

Records of 29,386

1,076

Share of all recalls

3.7%

Class I of 1,076

384

Reported between

2012 to 2026

Peanuts as a major food allergen

Peanut is the allergen most often recalled as cross-contact rather than as an ingredient, which makes it a question about shared lines and changeover cleaning rather than about a recipe.

These records are a subset of the 7,778 undeclared allergen recalls. A single recall frequently names more than one allergen, so the counts across this family overlap. An undeclared allergen recall means a food contained one of the major allergens and the label did not say so, either because the wrong label was applied or because an ingredient carried an allergen nobody traced.

What is different about these records

By product, Peanuts is weighted toward snacks and confectionery: 31.4% of the records here against 14.7% across the corpus.

Recalls involving undeclared peanuts skew less severe than the corpus: 35.7% are Class I against 44% nationally.

The volume is rising: 159 records in the three years to 2025, against 83 in the four before them. A rise in records is not the same as a rise in hazards.

What the law says about peanuts

Peanuts are one of the nine in 21 U.S.C. 321(qq)(1) and are named separately from tree nuts, which botanically they are not. An ingredient containing peanut protein is a major food allergen under paragraph (2), with the highly refined oil exclusion of paragraph (2)(A) applying to refined peanut oil. Section 343(w) requires the word peanut on the label in one of the two permitted forms, and since peanut is its own food source there is no species to name. What the statute does not require is an advisory statement: a may contain peanuts line is voluntary, and the FDA's position is that it must be truthful and not misleading and cannot substitute for the cross-contact controls of 21 CFR 117.135. Peanut butter has a standard of identity of its own at 21 CFR 164.150, which fixes what the product must contain and says nothing about allergen labelling; the two regimes sit on the same jar without touching.

The clause this maps to

A preventive controls plan covers an undeclared peanuts allergen under the clauses below. This is where the control belongs, not a finding against any firm named on this page: a recall record states a reason, and most of these recalls were initiated by the firm itself.

21 CFR 117.135(c)(2)

Food allergen controls: the written preventive controls that keep an allergen out of a food it does not belong in, and that get the allergens present onto the label.

21 CFR 101.4

Ingredient declaration: every ingredient listed by its common name, in descending order of predominance, on the label of a packaged food.

21 CFR 117 subpart G

Supply-chain programme: the approval and verification a receiving facility runs on a supplier when the hazard is controlled before the ingredient arrives.

By year

Counts are by the date the FDA reported the enforcement action. That date runs behind the date a firm started a recall, so the most recent year is always partial.

Firms with the most records

A firm appears here because it reported recalls, which is what a working recall procedure produces. A high count frequently reflects a single event split across many product codes rather than many separate failures.

• Koogee-Queen Anne, LLC78
• CSM Bakery Products NA64
• Creative Foodworks, Inc52
• Adams Extract & Spice LLC45
• Whole Foods Market41
• Gourmet Foods International33
• Houston Pecan Company, Inc31
• Con Yeager Spice Co30
• Lavoi Corporation d/b/a/ Epi De France22
• CHICAGO BAR COMPANY LLC RXBAR19
• Mars Chocolate North America19
• Kellogg Company19

Where the recalling firms are

The state is the location of the recalling firm, not where the product was sold. Distribution is recorded separately on each record.

• Texas234
• Georgia136
• New Jersey95
• Kentucky80
• New York69
• California53
• Pennsylvania52
• Michigan39
• Illinois38
• Florida36
• Wisconsin32
• Minnesota26

Most recently reported

Questions

How many FDA recalls involve undeclared peanuts?

1,076 FDA food recall records since 2012 name undeclared peanuts, out of 7,778 undeclared allergen recalls in total. That makes it the fourth most frequently undeclared of the allergens tracked here.

Is peanuts a major food allergen?

Peanut is the allergen most often recalled as cross-contact rather than as an ingredient, which makes it a question about shared lines and changeover cleaning rather than about a recipe.

Which clause covers undeclared peanuts?

Allergen labelling failures are covered under 21 CFR 117.135(c)(2), the food allergen preventive controls, together with 21 CFR 101.4 for the ingredient declaration itself. Where the allergen arrived inside a purchased ingredient, the supply-chain programme in 21 CFR 117 subpart G is the control that should have caught it.

All FDA food recall data